The effects of no-tillage and conventional tillage on greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields with various rice varieties

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) production worldwide strives to meet the challenges of the millennium and ensure food for the overgrown population. Improving traditional rice-growing techniques could effectively increase productivity, reduce water and fertilizer consumption, and mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The current study at-tempts to examine the effect of two rice cultivation (RC) methods, viz. conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) and "rice varieties (RV), namely var. MTU 1010, var. IET 4786, var. IET 17430 and var. IET 9947 & DPRIME;, on methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during the rice-growing season (Kharif) in India. The results showed CH4 and CO2 fluxes were higher under the CT plots than under the NT plots. There was a trade-off between CH4 and N2O production in paddy fields (PF), with CT plots showing lower N2O flux than NT. The "CO2-eq emission (pGWP)" and "yield-scaled CO2-eq emission (YpGWP)" in NT were significantly lower compared to CT with increased rice yields (p < 0.05). Analysis of the energy budget showed that energy use was reduced to 41.67% when replaced with the NT method. When compared to CT cultivation, the energy saved through the NT cultivation was around 2.33 MJ for every kilogram of rice produced. The study showed that the NT is one of the promising methods that should be encouraged among farmers to curb GHG emissions and in-crease rice production.